Soul Mates
by Thomas Moore

The essence of his book is bring the "heart" back into people's lives. It reminds people how important it is not to get bogged down in rational thought but, instead, to get lost in the wonder of creative, imaginative emotion. Here are some excerpts from Moore's book....

The heart has it owns reasons. When we try to understand why relationships come into being and fall apart, why some families are nurturing and others devastating, why some friendships endure long absences and bitter arguments while others fade, we come face to face with the unknown core of the human heart. Of course, we spend a great deal of time coming up with all kinds of explanations for unexpected turns in emotion and feeling, but these "reasons" are more rationalizations and simplifications than understanding.
We are left with Plato's solution, that relationships are based on a form of madness, erotic madness. Rather than finding solutions for understanding and controlling this heart, we have no recourse but to honour its mysteries.

Yet, in our time we have tried to apply to the heart the same kind of mechanical and structural thinking that has made an astounding technological world .... We are being urged to become efficient rather than intimate.....

When we focus our attention on the soul of relationship, (be it marriages, families, self), instead of its interpersonal mechanics, a different set of values comes to the foreground .........we begin to see relationship as the place where soul works out is destiny. We are not so concerned with how to make relationship "work", because the soul point of view isn't ambitious in that way. It doesn't make love a life project.

….In the face of difficulties that have profound roots, we bring to relationship a fix it attitude, assuming all failures need to be corrected. When our focus is on the surfaces of life, we seek out mechanical causes and solutions to problems, but if our attention were on the soul, we would explore its dreams and fantasies, its own unpredictable intentions.

Another advantage of regarding relationships from the soul's viewpoint is that it offers us a more tolerant attitude toward the down side. The shadows and gaps that will inevitably present themselves at times. Ordinarily we assume that a relationship should be smooth and complete, and when trouble arrives, we think the relationship itself is open to doubt. ....but relationship troubles may be a challenging initiation into intimacy."

Intimacy begins at home, with oneself. It does no good to try to find intimacy with friends, lovers and family if you are starting out from alienation and division within yourself. If we do not take into account our own relationship to soul, than the inner and the outer may become confused. Being a friend to yourself is no mere metaphor or purely sentimental idea. It is the basis of all relationships, because it is a fundamental recognition of soul...
We may feel tension in our lives and assume it is due to problems in a relationship with someone, but seemingly outer tension may be an echo of inner conflict.

The soul is a complicated field of paradoxes and contradictions …. by honouring these impulses, we find our best way into its mysteries."

As strong as the yearning for attachment is, there is something else in us that yearns for solitude, freedom and detachment .... Maybe the best way to tend to these two needs is to notice where the anxiety is. In matters of soul, it is advisable never to compensate or to try to escape but instead to tend better the very thing is causing trouble.

Many people imagine a relationship fundamentally as a simple structure of being together. They may have never considered that a whole world of thoughts, images and memories lies just beneath the surface, often giving a powerful emotional charge to the simplest interactions.

A relationship can go on for years after its soul has disappeared.

It's difficult for a relationship to have soul if the people involved don't wonder what is happening to them, especially in times of ferment. I am not referring to endless analysis and introspection, which can dry out a relationship with the drive toward understanding. Wonder and open discussion are more moist.
Sometimes popular psychology lays down impossible rules and expectations for a relationship....

We are supposed to communicate to our partners. We are expected to be good listeners and to be full of patience and empathy. We are given the illusion that it's possible to understand ourselves and others. But it seems to me that these expectations ignore soul.
The soul is always complicated. Most of its thoughts and emotions could never be expressed in plain language. You could have the patience of Job and still never understand your partner, because the soul by nature doesn't lend itself to understanding or to clarity of expression.

If we are going to be soulful in our relationships, then we will have to give up these expectations that are foreign to soul. We may have to enter the confusion of another's soul, with no hope of ever finding clarity, without demanding that the other be clear in expressing her feelings....

The courage required to open one's soul to express itself or to receive another is infinitely more demanding than the effort we put into avoidance of intimacy.

It isn't easy to expose your soul to another, to risk such vulnerability, hoping that the other person will be able to tolerate your own irrationality. It may also be difficult, no matter how open minded you are, to be receptive as another reveals her soul to you. This mutual vulnerability is one of the great gifts of love ......